


A Head Above Water

by entanglednow



Category: Good Omens (TV)
Genre: Angst, Aziraphale and Crowley Through The Ages (Good Omens), Caring Aziraphale (Good Omens), Hurt/Comfort, M/M, Protective Crowley (Good Omens), Snake Crowley (Good Omens), The Ark (Good Omens), The Great Flood
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-11-21
Updated: 2020-11-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 22:41:45
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,963
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27653585
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/entanglednow/pseuds/entanglednow
Summary: In which Aziraphale attempts to find some meaning in the tragedy of the Great Flood, while caring for an exhausted Crawly.
Relationships: Aziraphale/Crowley (Good Omens)
Comments: 58
Kudos: 364
Collections: Get A Wiggle On Zine





	A Head Above Water

**Author's Note:**

> Written for the Get A Wiggle On zine, a snake Crowley collection. The exclusivity period is now up and I can share the stories I wrote for it. Thank you to the amazing Chamyl for looking through this for mistakes for me!
> 
> This contains mentions of death during the flooding.

The rain is fierce and unrelenting, which is unsurprising considering its origin. The water level is already high enough to overwhelm all human-built structures, to wash away the monuments of a thousand-year-old civilisation. Aziraphale hadn't seen it rush through the narrow valleys in a roaring wave. He hadn't seen it slam into the temples and towers, and burst from the ground to swallow villages. He was already on the Ark by then. But it was almost impossible to block out the sound of it, the sound of such an impossible, unstoppable onslaught. He hadn't been able to stop himself from picturing it, from imagining its destructive power.

He'd thought, right up until the last moment, that perhaps there would be some revelation that it had been a test all along. A way to scare mankind into making the right choices, into resisting the urge to sin quite so excessively.

Right up until the last moment.

It's been more than three days, and Aziraphale still isn't used to the pitch and sway of the boat. Every step feels unsteady, leaves him instinctively wanting to raise his wings behind him as the ground lurches out from beneath his feet. Of course it never does, it just keeps rolling and tilting, leaving a sympathetic rolling somewhere around the chest region that he has a horrible feeling is nausea. He's never felt it before, and he doesn't like it at all.

Being on deck is considerably better than being in the hold, the fresh air a little more welcome than the thick, animal smells that seem to cling to everything. But he doesn't want to run into Noah again. The man has a certain _intensity_ to him, the way that he speaks about the world that's lost, of the people that are gone - it reminds Aziraphale rather strongly of Heaven.

No, he heads back down into the hold, out of the pouring rain that fills the sky as far as the eye can see.

It feels like descending into the very bowels of the boat.

Aziraphale uses a small miracle to light the dark space around him, then moves quietly along a row of sturdy, supporting beams. Where, at the very end of the row, tucked in between piles of hay and sacks of grain, is a tightly curled mass of black and red coils. Crawly has been there since he returned to the boat late last night. He'd been determined to go back out into the rain and look for more survivors. Aziraphale had protested, he'd reasoned that he couldn't hope to fly in this weather. Crawly had simply shifted form and spiralled down until he became a rasp of dark scales on wood, then he'd slithered off the side of the Ark and into the water.

Aziraphale had paced the deck for hours in the rain, desperate for a sighting of him, twisting and squeezing his fingers until they hurt, and cursing himself for not doing a better job of convincing Crawly that it was hopeless. Then cursing himself more, for being so willing to extinguish hope where it lived.

Crawly had come back two days after he'd left. His long body moving sluggishly through the water, clearly exhausted and freezing cold. Aziraphale had watched the fierce waves knock him away from the Ark's hull twice before he’d managed to find some sort of purchase on the wet wood. Enough that he was able drag himself painfully slowly up the side. Until he was high enough that Aziraphale could lean over and pull him up the rest of the way.

There would be no more survivors.

There were currently twelve children sleeping in the hold, their small, dirty faces confused and fearful. Crawly had hidden them away in the very depths of the Ark, where Noah and his family never ventured. Where the oppressive, animal stench was thickest. They were tucked in carefully behind draped animal hides and piles of unused wood. The small space had been lined with wool, feathers, and a subtle suggestion of emptiness to keep people away. It was as safe a place as Crawly could make it. The children were huddling there in low light, dressed in thin, tattered clothing, clutching wooden toys and ragged sacks filled with damp food and precious pieces of their lives before. They'd all cried the first few days, the sound of it thick with grief and exhaustion, the eldest urging the younger ones to be quiet, afraid to be found, afraid to be tossed back out into the deluge. 

Aziraphale had known perfectly well what his duty should have been. _'I see only animals in the hold,'_ he'd told himself firmly when he found them, and he'd moved on.

There were twelve children on the Ark. But Aziraphale knows that Crawly had brought far more people than that to high ground. 

He ducks under a beam and carefully shuffles closer to Crawly's tightening coils. He's not entirely sure if he'll be welcome, but something in him needs to offer comfort. That's what he should do, he's an angel, and his duty is to comfort those in pain. 

Demon or not, Crawly is clearly suffering. He's pulled himself into a messy tangle that seems to want to deny all form and function. His scales are still cold beneath Aziraphale's hand, when he settles it uncertainly on a wide, slow-moving loop of Crawly's serpentine body. The demon had stayed out far too long in the flood, spent too long in the water, expending what energy he had looking for survivors. He was paying for it now, and Aziraphale suspects he couldn't change back into human form even if he wanted to. Though this place is far from safe for him, he'd face much worse than discorporation if anyone knew he was here.

Aziraphale sinks to the floor, miracles a woollen blanket and then shakes it out, lays it over as much of Crawly's body as he can. He's lengthened and expanded since Eden, no matter how well he pulls himself in, no matter how tightly he knots himself, there's so much of him still exposed. But Aziraphale doesn't dare perform a miracle to try and warm the exhausted demon. He's uncertain what would happen, he's never used his power on Crawly before, and the last thing he wants is to either accidentally smite him, or to call Heaven's attention down upon them both.

"Crawly, you're freezing," he says quietly.

"There's no one left." Crawly's voice is a soft crackle of confused despair. "It's water as far as I could go, angel."

"It wasn't your fault," Aziraphale tells him. It wasn't, it couldn't have been, not for so much.

"Is thisss how it's going to go if they don't measure up?" It's a hissing push of words. Crawly's long snout slowly stretches towards him, settles on Aziraphale's knee. His eyes are dull, and there's no curious slide of forked tongue to taste the air. "Is this what their children have to look forward to?"

Aziraphale settles the blanket more firmly around his coils, only for Crawly to work his way out of it again when he flexes and turns, head lifting until he can see Aziraphale's face.

"Do you remember Abra? He made that ssspiced bread, the one you said that you liked."

Aziraphale nods in answer. He remembers the spiced bread, and the large, smiling man who'd baked it daily. He'd enjoyed it more than an angel probably should. The way the flavour would rush out if you bit into it while it was still warm, fill your mouth and nose with the memory of spices and fruit and sweetness. Crawly had refused to try it. He'd viewed the little pieces of fruit inside with deep suspicion, which Aziraphale had found terribly amusing - that a demon could be so disturbed by the idea of ingesting food like a human. As if his corporation was so vulnerable.

"I mean, sure, his house was a bit lively sometimes, and some of his friends were a bit too fond of getting drunk and breaking stuff, but I don't think they all deserved to drown for it."

"Crawly, please." Thinking about it all is deeply upsetting and he'd - he'd really rather not.

But of course Crawly doesn't stop.

"You'll never get to eat that bread again, angel. That bread will never exist again, not for you, not for anyone, not the way Abra made it. It's gone forever now."

_It's ineffable._

Aziraphale bites down on the word until his jaw aches. It's true, but it serves nothing to remind Crawly of that when he's taking this so hard. Aziraphale knows that it will only leave him hissing and spitting, and likely rejecting his company entirely. The thought of that is strangely unbearable right now. But Crawly must hear something in his silence, because his whole body shifts, coils loosening so he can lift his head again, tongue sliding out and flicking through the air.

"They're so brief to start with, they're around for barely any time at all, here and then gone. What can they possibly hope to learn in such a short space of time? What can they possibly have done that's worth wiping them all out and starting again?"

"Crawly, you know that there must be a reason, there's always a reason."

"Is there?" Crawly demands. "Or did She simply grow bored of them?"

Aziraphale frowns at him, adjusts the blanket again, since the demon is so determined to ignore his own welfare in favour of arguing. He'll feel better once he's warmed up a little. He'll realise that there was nothing they could have done. Everything won't seem quite so hopeless.

"Now, you know that's not true, I told you, there's a plan for after -"

"After all of them have drowned," Crawly says flatly.

Not all of them - Aziraphale stops the words before they can leave his mouth - such awful words.

Crawly's long, looped coils flex and then clench, as if prepared to argue his point, or simply spoiling for a fight. But he seems to think better of it, scaled body relaxing slowly on a long, miserable hiss.

"I don't know how you can be fine with it." It's too soft to be an accusation, it's more of a plea. _'Tell me, please tell me how you can think this is righteous?'_

But of course it is, it must be, She doesn't make mistakes. This is all part of Her plan for humanity. They just don't understand it yet. If only they understood it everything would make sense.

"It's not our place to - to -" Try as he might, Aziraphale can't get the words out, they all lodge in his throat, refusing to shift one way or the other. Until it aches to hold them, until it hurts like his corporation is broken. Which he's almost certain that Gabriel will blame him for.

Crawly's mass twitches beneath the blanket, lifting it and casting it off entirely in a slow, rushing slide of scales. Aziraphale's hold on him loosens, his arm falling away, though he's not sure when he'd placed it around the thin coil of his neck. The heavy weight of Crawly's body nudges into and then across Aziraphale's folded legs, dragging at his robes as he shifts slowly but determinedly upwards.

Aziraphale can't seem to get enough air, and he's making noises that he doesn't entirely understand.

Crawly curls around him, pulling at the slump of his shoulders and the strange tightness of his chest, until cold scales press against his neck. There's a quick, dry flicker of a touch along the side of his face, and a slow rush of hot air.

"Hush," Crawly says gently, so impossibly gently. "It wasn't your fault either, angel."


End file.
